


the walls are thin, so keep your voices down

by heibai



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: M/M, cheese?, cute little beans all sprouted up, faithfulness? what a concept, four way ties lolol, i think..., the popular ships vs the "obscure ones", uhhh idk friendship?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-04
Updated: 2017-09-04
Packaged: 2018-12-23 20:07:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11997030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heibai/pseuds/heibai
Summary: There are two things happening that night.A conversation over tea, and a conversation underneath a blanket.(a ka you may love someone with all your heart but nobody ever tells you what to do when they have such awful bedtime habits)





	the walls are thin, so keep your voices down

**Author's Note:**

> I was scouring through tumblr and saw [this post right here](http://yeheeeeee.tumblr.com/post/164896398934/quick-someone-write-a-fic-about-this) and I was like "omg need."  
> So while I was #procrastinating my next school assignment, I birthed this... short thing. pls enjoy and wow these kids are like squids you can just take one and put it beside another and they'll match iDK how they do it.

“Is it happening again?”

 

The two of them, the two night owls were perching on their respective favourite spots. Mark on the kitchen stool and Renjun on the dining table. But although they were separated by almost one stone throw worth of dead-night silence and fuzzy air caused by their inability to sleep, one thing brought them together in this magical hour of midnight.

 

Wait. Make it two.

 

The cup of steaming chamomile tea in their hands,

 

and a faint sense of jealousy.

 

“Well, I believe you know the answer to that,” Mark breathed out after he carefully blowed and tested out the temperature of the surface of his tea with a little sip. It was still too hot.

 

_Can you find him in my room? No? Then of course yes, it’s happening again._

 

The period of silence that fell between them was only cut by the creaking sound of the wooden chair, as Renjun was using his feet to idly rock it back and forth from his position, sitting on the edge of the table. “Help me understand. Why are they doing this?”

 

Renjun averted his gaze to where Mark was sitting, and caught him at the end of his tiny shrug. Right when his shoulders fell and his mouth touched his mug, before the heat stung him as a punishment for his impatience. “He said that Jeno is so snuggable,” one weak grimace later, Mark continued on his hypothesis with a tiny smile on his face, “he said Jeno smells nice.”

 

“Aaand Jeno said Donghyuk doesn’t snore. Amazing.” The sound the chair made when Renjun finally stopped his foot-fiddling and put all of its legs down to the floor was a bit too loud in the small apartment they all shared. He shot a wide-eyed, worried look to Mark but it all quickly devolved into a quiet, gigglish laughter when Renjun saw that Mark had his hand placed over his heart. Like a frail grandmother would. “Do I snore? Be honest.”

 

“Like a phlegmy, 40 years old chainsmoker with a pot belly.”

 

They would’ve laughed if they weren’t stuck there, smack dab in the middle of a weekday’s midnight where everyone else were asleep aside from these two. But as the condition didn’t allow them to, a scoff and some head shakes must suffice.

 

“Why aren’t you worried? Mark, don’t tell me I’m the only one that’s worried,” Renjun has started to once again fiddle, tipping off the chair on its two back legs. To and fro, to and fro, while he took deep sips from his tea. _Fire don’t burn dragons,_ he said, everytime Mark looked at him with horror because Renjun never waited for his hot beverages to decrease in temperature and would just gobble everything up as if they were lukewarm tap water.

 

“He likes you.” _And only you._

 

“And yet I’m not what he deem as _'spoonable material’_.”

 

Mark rolled his eyes when he saw Renjun poking his cheeks with his index finger, “maybe I should put on some weight? Maybe then he’ll see me as more spoonable,- Ow!” The sound of protest was quickly stifled when Renjun put a hand over his mouth. The walls are thin in this student lodging. The last thing they wanted was the subject of their conversation to know that they were made into the core subject of a conversation.

 

But thin walls were no means to stop Renjun from throwing looks of icy daggers at Mark, and so he did just that, all the while rubbing the spot on his shoulder that was hit by Mark’s plastic spoon.

 

“I’m not worried,” Mark finally stated his own view of this nightly phenomenon after he allowed the atmosphere of the room to go back into a calm lull. And also, after he allowed himself to enjoy two big sips of his (finally) drinkable chamomile tea.

 

“Because… why?”

 

“Because I know he loves me.” _And only me._

  


_ _ _ _ _

  


“They’re still out there?” With blankets pulled up to their foreheads, everything sounded near, and dampened, and warm, and moist with their breath condensing. Although, Donghyuk and Jeno always set aside one ear to hear whatever it was that the late-night owl conference was covering.

 

It seemed that once every week or so, one of them would break under pressure and address the obvious. The obvious matters of their sleeping arrangements.

 

The walls are thin in this student lodging, and they were giggling their hearts out when they heard Mark’s description of Renjun’s snoring problem.

 

“He isn’t wrong.”

 

“He really isn’t.”

 

But in the lengthy silence that came more often than speech, Donghyuk and Jeno would find themselves staring at each other, wondering what will happen first. Sleep, or the far away hoots of their owls.

 

This time, a third option came and presented itself in the form of Jeno’s hushed words, “maybe tomorrow you should go back to your room.”

 

Before he managed to finish that, however, Donghyuk threw his arm over Jeno’s shoulder and pulled themselves closer. Eventhough in the small single bed, there was not much distance that separated them in the first place, “but you’re my perfect living plushie man.”

 

“Then learn to take Mark as your new cuddle toy,” Jeno had to stop this madness with a hand on Donghyuk’s face, pushing him away until they were back at their starting position. Lying at the opposite edges of Jeno’s tiny bed.

 

“But why??”

 

“I miss it.”

 

The look of shock (disgust? Disbelief?) on Donghyuk’s face was so palpable Jeno couldn’t help but to plop his hand over his friend’s face once more. “You really do miss that motor engine rumbling right down your ears?”

 

“Shut up. I know you also miss the smell of dirty socks in your room.”

 

Noticing that their owls had started talking again, they signalled for each other to be quiet. At least for a little while. At least until the hear the sound of two mugs clinking inside the sink and the sound of the door opposite Jeno’s room opening and closing.

 

Jeno gave Donghyuk a tiny nudge, which didn’t stop until Donghyuk swatted Jeno's hand away from his hips and jumped back to the bed that’s supposed to belong to the ‘motor engine snorer’ himself. “So? What do you say?”

 

“Fine. But I’m taking your aromatherapy with me.”

 

“Go and get your own, cheapskate.”

  
  


_It wouldn’t be love unless there’s a little bit of sacrifice. Right?_

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> ps: hmu on twitter [@moon__soil](https://twitter.com/moon__soil)


End file.
